Page - 36 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

36 | Hessel J. Zondag www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 35–46 Party of Indonesia). Das radikal Böse deals with the large-scale murder of Jews in Eastern Europe by German Einsatzgruppen (special task forces) during the Second World War. Both directors, Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) and Stefan Ruzow- itzky (Das radikal Böse), direct attention to people who were guilty of involve- ment in these mass killings, men who were perpetrators. In this article I look at the psychological perspective adopted by the directors, an exploration that is easier for Das radikal Böse than for The Act of Killing as Ruzowitzky makes explicit use of social psychology. The concepts of conformity and obedience and the bystander effect are the point of departure for his film. In the last 70 years much social-psychological research has investigated the destructive at- titudes of so many individuals during the Second World War. The psychological perspective adopted by Oppenheimer is instead implicit as he explores the idea of trauma. His approach is to describe the actions of only one, although the most prominent one, of those portrayed as perpetrators. Ruzowitzky, by con- trast, aims to provide insight into the actions of all the perpetrators. The psychological analysis of Das radikal Böse is therefore more elaborate than that of The Act of Killing. Moreover, Das radikal Böse is more fitting for such analysis than is The Act of Killing because of its explicit use of concepts derived from social psychology to investigate mass killing in the Second World War. The trauma idea is only peripheral to The Act of Killing, both in the docu- mentary itself and in the reflections of its director. The approaches of the directors are dissimilar. In Das radikal Böse the direc- tor seeks to explain how the killing was able to take place. How did ordinary men become mass murderers? What led them to kill men, women and children who had no role in the military hostilities? The Act of Killing focuses on the life of a mass murderer after the large-scale slaughter. How does this man look back at that period, which at the time the documentary was made was already 40 years in the past? The Act of Killing is about how a mass murderer views himself; Das radikal Böse is about how someone becomes a mass murderer. Both perspectives are revelatory and provide insight and structure. But ques- tion marks hang over both stories, for while they disclose they simultaneously conceal. That dual character is inevitable, I propose, as every approach, includ- ing the filmic, requires a certain perspective. And each perspective discloses and conceals. The Act of Killing AND TRAUMA The Act of Killing looks back to the mass killings in Indonesia in the mid 1960s. These murders began after an alleged communist coup d’état. The documen- tary presents us with a number of murderers who relate their stories about the